


TO THE CAPITOL

by Cerulean_Spork



Series: Shatterdome Heldensagen [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Pacific Rim (2013), Princess Bride (1987), The Clash, e. e. cummings - Fandom
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst and Humor, Gen, Mentions of War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 05:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1001761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerulean_Spork/pseuds/Cerulean_Spork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>long before Knifehead the Beckets are invited on television, with unpredictable results (or not so much) and shortly after the closing of the Breach, Raleigh considers past and future with a view to the present together with Mako, Tendo and Herc Hansen (who is voluble on painkillers)</p>
            </blockquote>





	TO THE CAPITOL

Almost a year had passed since the Beckets had been recognized as Rangers, and it had become impossible to fend off the demands of the major media -- which, after all, owned a significant percentage of the lobbying power in the US Congress -- so they were off to New York and the morning interview show circuit.

Very shortly they would be completing the last leg of their journey, from the shared PPDC / USCG station on Staten Island -- no four-star hotels for Rangers! not when the channel wouldn't spring for the same for the helicopter crew -- to the broadcasting station, in one of the smaller Kestrels, so they could expect the video-sharing sites and Conspiracist boards to start fomenting with **_OMG BLACK HELICOPTERS PPDC = NWO!!!_** chart-toppers shortly.

For whatever private reasons of his own, Marshal Pentecost had elected to watch the telecast from LOCCENT instead of his own rooms or his office at the Academy.

It wasn't simulcast to their side of the North American continent, but anyone who seriously thought that LOCCENT would have to wait for a tape delay needed a gullibility check. So there was everybody who could fit into the fishbowl, and everyone else was getting the mirror to their cabin systems or tablets, even though it was 0300h. **Nobody** was missing this, even if they couldn't do anything to support them this time -- except pray.

If anyone present suspected that he, too, deemed this no different from any other combat mission, they kept prudently quiet about it.

Everything in the long journey with all its refueling stops had been managed so far with the sort of precise synchronization that most people never realized took any sort of effort at all, which meant that the odds of something going dreadfully wrong had skyrocketed -- but again, it was almost entirely out of the hands of anyone but the Beckets, at this point.

What **that** did to the odds, nobody knew.

LOCCENT Tech Mike Ardan had briefed them, very seriously, because **_he_** had been almost a rock star himself at Mission Control, back in the days when NASA was still something other than a memory, before the JPL had been wrecked and all the satellite programs privatized or sold off to European agencies, so he knew what they were in for.

"Look, guys, I can't tell you **why** they do this, but they always have, and as far as I or anybody knows they always **will**. They gotta make you feel small, to make themselves feel bigger, or something. I don't know. Maybe it's because pilots go out past the shallows, past the safe zones where it's deep and dark and there's no mercy, you can't **argue** your way out of the vacuum like you can **a traffic ticket** \--" and then he stopped, because he was getting philosophical and their eyes were getting correspondingly glassy.

"Anyway. They're gonna ask you The Question, because they **always do** , they always **have** , and it's **never** innocent. Maybe it was back in the days of the Mercury Program, but it hasn't been for a long, long time. It's not like they couldn't have found out easily enough if they wanted to -- space suit plumbing's been public information for decades, if they bothered to look it up, but they didn't, and they don't bother to read the PDFs on our site either."

The Corps had no interest in having people wash out because they were shocked and disillusioned at the nitty-gritty, unpleasant details of the glamorous job of Jaeger Pilot, so they'd followed NASA's lead in later years -- but that didn't stop the media from trying to reenact 'The Right Stuff' every time.

"They **never** ask about the **circuitry** , the **insulation** , about the **Bridge** \-- about **anything** interesting or technical at all, all they want to do is **embarrass** you when they ask about the suits, so you need to be **ready** for it." Ardan's scowl deepened.

"And they'll give you grief about your personal lives, 'cause it's like high school **all over again** down there. They'll do everything they **can** to get you to give them tabloid and webloid fodder, partly because all they know is 'Sex Sells!' **and** partly because it's a good way to throw you off your game -- and it's **all** a game to them--"

He was angrier than he knew, he realized, and tried to dial it down, but they'd had too many dead **before** the War, and too much experience of the fickle, empty flattery of predatory corporate media, for him not to feel that way.

**_Stuff the broken toys in a box for the dump, run after the next bright shiny thing -- and NEVER tell useful truths that could let the viewers know what they needed, to judge for themselves what was worthwhile or not--_ **

But he couldn't do anything to change that, all he could do was help his teammates to defend themselves against it.

"This **isn't** gonna be like the interviews the local stations around here've done, it's **not** going to be fun and respectful and sincere, it's not even going to be like the AP and Reuters showing up here on **our** turf to take your picture and get 'a few words, a few minutes of your valuable time, gentlemen.' "

Ardan sighed, shaking his head.

"It's gonna be hell, and they're gonna try to eat you **_alive_** , boys, **and** anybody **_close_** to you -- so if either of you has a harem of baristas downtown you haven't warned, you better shoot them all a text, before you go on-air."

He'd made a joke of it at the end there, but his expression was more sickly than amused, which had left them worried enough to actually stop and **think** about it, and what they could do to prepare.

Before they'd left they'd come up to LOCCENT for one last reassurance -- if you could call it that -- and he'd rolled his chair back, looking up at their worried, too-young faces, and pulled his game face back on, the one that you learned fast at Mission Control, because you were **always** on show, and things always could -- **and did** \-- go wrong, and **hopefully** it was just the weather...

"Hey, they can't be any worse than the Kaiju, right? This is **just another mission** , and you don't even have to get dressed up for it!"

"We gotta wear **ties,"** Raleigh said gloomily.

"Yeah, that bites. But you know, you've **faced** bigger, you can **do** this. I **know** you can. Remember, you're not just there for yourselves -- you're there speaking for **her,"** and he pointed out the front of the fishbowl, and they straightened up as if his words had been magic, as though he'd just cast a buff on them.

**_You poor dumb bunnies. I wish we didn't HAVE to do this to you--_ **

"At least they're not going to be **shocked** you can string two words together in English," he added, thinking of how astronauts who **weren't** blond and blue-eyed had typically been treated by television -- not to mention he himself, who spoke four languages, three of them fluently -- but they were too young, too sheltered, to understand, though the Chief made a choking sound and hastily spun off to Station 3 instead of catching his eye.

"Listen, boys, just -- do your best. Get out there and be yourselves, **remember** they're not **any better than you** just because they've got bigger TVs and limousines and houses on the Cape. Like the saying goes, **don't** give them **hell** \-- give them **the truth** , and they'll **_think_** it's hell."

They'd nodded solemnly, said their thanks and stomped off in their combat boots and those ridiculous jackets that the Pentagon loved so much, looking as always like they'd wandered in from an old Hollywood set, and nobody in Ops thought to wonder **why** they were carrying a medium-size cooler along with their duffel bags -- or if they did, assumed it was full of sodas, which would be perfectly normal. (But this was the Beckets, and SOP with them just ** _wasn't.)_**

Now, as they were in the process of getting safely boarded under Gyrfalcon Group Leader's personal oversight as official SD-AK Coast Guard Liaison, the helicopter's microphone was abruptly wheedled away by the younger Becket, who had something **very** important to say, or ask, or both.

"Marshal Pentecost? I **just** found out my security code name!"

After a moment of everyone waiting for something to follow this announcement, he added, in an indignant splutter, **"It's _Percival!"_**

"Yes?"

 ** _"Percival!_** That's so -- **stupid**! How come **Yancy** gets to be 'Galahad' and **I** have to be 'Percival'--?"

 **"Alphabetical order,** Mr. Becket."

"But -- **'Percival'?! _Seriously?!"_** He sounded almost frantic. "That's sooo dorky! How can I go out there and face people, knowing my code name is **freaking _PERCIVAL'_** , Sir?"

The Marshal sighed.

"Mr. Becket, your security code names are **meant** for your security detatchment's convenience, **not** yours. They're **also private** , between you and your security detachment -- or at least, such **was** the case before you decided to broadcast it all over LOCCENT just now. Oh, wait -- Mr. Choi is reminding me that this is being **mirrored** across the 'Dome."

There was a groan and a muttered, **_"Oh, god!"_** over the intercom, and in the far distance his brother could be heard shouting to him to come on, sit down and strap in--

"Can't I be 'Lancelot' instead? **Lancelot's** cool--"

"No."

"Why **not?"**

"Security reasons," the Marshal said impassively.

"But that doesn't make any **sense**!"

"It's **classified** ," Pentecost replied, without any shame whatsoever. "Now **sit down** , or you'll be **late."**

There was a grumbling mutter and then the com was turned back over to the helicopter pilots, while everyone in LOCCENT tried not to look at each other and their commander stood still at attention, ignoring the fuss.

 

Relatively few minutes later, the Kestrel-class had set down on the broadcasters' rooftop helipad and the entire team ushered through the elevators and down to the lobby up front -- the television channel was bigger on protocol and formality than the PPDC, they were surprised to discover -- to be signed in and then escorted to the green room with two of their guards.

They took a moment to get their composure back, standing as close as they could, shoulders pressed together, because they very much needed it

"Ready to face the Capitol, my fellow Tribute?" Yancy asked, under his breath, his eyes glittering. Nearly as wild-eyed, his brother tossed his head.

"They just want a good show, that's all they want -- so let's **give** 'em one!"

"Time to make the District proud," the older pilot nodded. He reached into his pocket -- careful not to rumple his uniform tunic at all -- and slipped out a medallion-like object that, when pinned in place on his lapel, turned out to be some sort of scintillating cross between an old-fashioned state fair ribbon, and the more psychedelic of plastic toys for small children.

It was pearlescent white satin, edged with black, and in the center was a gold-tone sol-y-luna emblem from which depended a handful or so of glass gemstones in assorted colors, and except for its peculiar gaudiness, did not look in the least amateurish. It was, however, one of a kind -- **completely** unique in this universe or any other.

They'd worked very hard on it, all by themselves without any help from anyone in Mechanical, ever since Marshal Pentecost had called them in to tell them that they would have to do an interview, looking almost as unhappy about the prospect as he did whenever the alarm went off, and handed them over to Mr. Ardan for pre-briefings.

After that, and having been given old pilot interviews (or, technically speaking, reminded that they **_had_** all of the recordings via the internal server) to watch and study, they began to feel a bit overwhelmed, and to understand why the Marshal had looked so **grim** about it. At that point they'd resolved that nobody was going to make a laughingstock of the Jaeger Program, or the Corps, or **anyone** but themselves -- and so help them, they'd give the media a spectacle to choke on!

Perhaps strangely, perhaps not, the previous catastrophic failure at ** _making a statement_** hadn't dissuaded them, but instead seemed to inspire them -- it was as though that fiasco had been a dry run, demonstrating the need for teamwork and no more going it alone (and **also** no getting anyone **_else_** involved!) but especially to hone the message, and its medium, so that there could be no possible misunderstandings.

Except for those they were **trying** to encourage, of course!

Raleigh carefully adjusted the ribbon to hang perfectly on his brother's chest, across from their shared kill pins and the Corps wings, as Yancy made one last adjustment to his collar and tie for him. Then, from a distance of mere inches, they bumped knuckles in a tightly-controlled but no less fierce gesture of solidarity.

Too quietly even for their security team to hear what they were saying, the Beckets whispered to each other:

_"Honor -- Courage -- Sacrifice--"_

_"Respect -- Perseverance -- Courage!"_

_"This is how we remember our past,"_ the elder added, and the younger ended, _"This is how we safeguard our future,"_ and there was a wolfish edge to their smiles that only they two had ever witnessed -- the only other time they wore it being in the Conn-Pod, in actual combat--as they bent the old familiar litany of tyrants around to their own service.

Then they squared their shoulders, nodded to their guards, and marched side by side in perfect step through the doors their escort opened, into the waiting arena and the all-devouring eyes of camera and studio audience...

 

There was a little meaningless chit-chat, as the theme music played and the logo rotated across the screen into its final position at the lower left; and then the camera swung across the set and locked onto their two pilots, and everyone in the fishbowl, and all those watching from outside in their own quarters or break rooms or out at their stations, went still and straightened unconsciously to attention, themselves.

Because the Beckets were absolutely, without the slightest qualifying factor, note-perfect. Their turnout was impeccable, their carriage and expressions all that a CO could wish for of those sent out to represent their branch -- and in their blue-steel dress uniforms, with their just-a-little-too long for contemporary military regulations hair, they looked **so** much as though they'd just stepped from the recruiting posters of seventy-five years ago--

 ** _More RAF than the RAF itself, may London and Washington BOTH choke on it,_** he thought with a fierce pride -- in them, in the Corps, in the whole world that had risen up and said **_No more --_**

**_You'd never GUESS they were shambling through the mess two nights ago, wearing orange-peel teeth and groaning BRAAAINS!!! as they lurched towards the dinner line -- SYNCHRONIZED lurching, no less!_ **

They shook hands with the hosts and took their seats, managing to look both both leonine and fluffy, as though they'd stepped from the Memorial Window at Westminster, and it was at that point he noticed that there was something **just slightly off** with Yancy Becket's kit -- he had something like a **very** old style Order of some sort, pinned to his chest there, but it wasn't possible to make out exactly what it was, over the television.

 ** _What game are they playing NOW? They can't have got hold of an OBE star, can they?_** No doubt all would soon be made clear, but he began to be a little bit worried. (More than the default, that is.)

The introductory music and blither concluded, and the ordeal began. As anticipated, they went for the younger of the two first, the male presenter addressing Raleigh with what was probably meant to come across as avuncular charm but achieved "used car salesman" instead.

"So **_Raleigh_** , how's it **feel** to be old enough to 'pilot a Jaeger,' " -- you could see him putting the quotes around that with his raised eyebrows and lifted chin, as if Jaegers were still something new and outlandish and the very idea of them something to shake the head at -- "and still **_not_** old enough to have a **beer?"**

The younger Ranger gave him a puzzled frown, tilting his head before answering with maddeningly-slow and monotonous care, "I'm not sure what you're asking, sir. Are you asking for my opinion on American drug policy, or are you asking if I've broken the law? 'Cause the first one, we could be here quite a while, sir, and the second -- well, they told us in school that the Constitution says we have a right against self-incrimination."

**_Well, well, well -- so Pilot Officer Percy has a brain behind that smile after all!_ **

"Heh, heh, aw, c'mon, don't tell me you've never sneaked a drink, an ** _adventurous young guy_** like you?" The presenter winked, with a little elbow-digging gesture.

"Okay," the pilot returned with a cockeyed smile. After it became painfully clear that he wasn't going to say anything else, the co-host shoved ahead.

"Okay, let's ah, how about, uh, how about we move on from drinking to, uh, well, what happens after you've been drinking. So, what do you do, if you, heheh, have to go in the Conn-Pod?"

Instantly the younger man's demeanor changed the full 180 degrees.

"Sir, **why** would you think that's an **appropriate** **question?"**

"Ah, **excuse** m--"

But young Becket cut him off, sounding a bit like a teacher, and ramping up the volume if not to 12, at least a good 9 or 10! His leaning forward and handwaving had the interesting effect of making the other man shove his chair back several inches, as if he were intimdated by the lad -- though the pilot hadn't made the slightest move that could be reasonably interpreted as a physical threat.

"I'm just **curious** why, out of **all possible questions** you could be asking us, in this short time that we're **here** \-- when you could be **asking me** about the Jaeger Program, **or** about the Kaijus, you could be **learning** about what's **involved fighting them** , why we go out on patrol **even when** its not within the range of normal Event dates, **why** there's false alarms, how the Breach **monitoring system** works -- all this kind of stuff that would **let people know** where their money's being used, we **don't** just spend it on **billboards** and TV ads--"

**_Hm, maybe THAT was part of the problem!_ **

Neither NASA in the past, nor the PPDC, had ever devoted much revenue to television, the former because that just wasn't how Things Were Done by government agencies, and the latter because it just didn't seem like a very **good** investment, or at least not a very trackable one --- so the big media outfits didn't see them as people to be handled with care, they weren't **_investors--_**

Well, that was an interesting thought, but one for later, as Becket wasn't done yet and wasn't going to let the show host get a word in edgewise if he could help it!

"I didn't **believe** it when they **told me** that you news people were all about the toilet humor -- but I guess they were right, and I was wrong. You know, if you wanna be rude, while you're wasting our time-- that's a game two can play. 'Cause, I bet I can come up with some **pretty inappropriate** questions, myself. But, see, I was **raised** better than that. They teach us **manners** , and **respect** , at the Jaeger Academy."

He inclined his head, sharply, in what was less a gesture **of** respect than a dismissal, sat back, and folded his hands.

**_Hah, you mistook your soft target there!_ **

The other presenter stepped into the fray to cover her nonplussed colleague, the camera lagging just a **second** behind the ideal, and thus showing an instant **more** of the man looking both befuddled and embarrassed, and more than a little angry.

 ** _Oh, that's interesting -- I would DEARLY like to see the faces of their crew, offstage, right now!_** Somehow Pentecost suspected, that the news station was **not** one united front, when it came to attitudes towards the Jaeger Program and their pilots...or, at least, towards their managerial strata!

"So, **Yancy** ," she asked with a smile that was supposed to be kindly and reassuring and instead just revealed the saccharine insincerity of a kindergarten teacher who despises children. "Can you tell us if there's **somebody special** in your life right now? Some -- particular -- **individual** you're thinking of?"

"Bingo," someone shouted, and Tendo shook his head in disgust. (In fact, both senior officers wore nearly identical expressions of validated pessimism.)

LOCCENT had a betting pool up on the board at once, odds flickering as fast as techs could type, with the three top, and only, positions being occupied by **WIN: JAEGER; PLACE: BROTHER; SHOW: OTHER.** Though nobody really expected a dark horse candidate (some wags were suggesting the coffee shop itself!) since everyone knew everyone's business unless you were superhumanly discreet --and among the Beckets' many qualities there was not a listing for 'Discretion,' so they were all equally blindsided when the time came.

"There **_is,"_** Ranger Becket said, with a coy little nod and the hint of a blush, his eyes wide and honest. Her smile looked less human and more like that of something with a tall fin above it, at that, but she circled about instead of coming in directly for the chomp.

"Can I ask you, what that **ribbon** on your jacket there is, Yancy? Something **political** , I assume?"

The older Ranger leaned forward in his chair and opened his eyes even wider, sincerity radiating off him like a blast furnace.

"I'm **SO HAPPY you asked me that** , Marcia -- it's **okay** if I call you Marcia, right? This ribbon stands for the service of Princess Celestia, Lady of Light, Source of **all** Truth  & Beauty in the Cosmos, the Eternal Queen who will put her Seal on the Breach and **save us** from the Kaiju forever, if we only **believe** in her enough. We must have **faith** , and we must give her **glory** , so that she can unite the Elements of Harmony -- symbolized by these gemstones here, you can see each color represents a different Virtue," pointing at the decorations as he spoke, "and **with** them bind the forces of Evil once again into the **Outer Darkness** \-- that's what the black velvet **surrounding** it all stands for, you see."

"Uh." The interviewer seemed to have forgotten her followup question, edging back a little from the young man's brilliant, fixed smile.

"I brought some literature for you to **share** ," the elder Becket continued, reaching into his inner coat pocket to pull out a sheaf of glossy trifolds while his brother nodded solemnly where he sat, as though this were all perfectly familiar to him -- which it must be, those brochures must have taken some doing! -- and equally reasonable-sounding (which was **also** likely the case, Pentecost thought, a trifle waspish) and attempted to hand them to her.

She attempted to **not** have them handed to her, rather desperately.

"No, no, it's okay, I have **lots** more back in the chopper. You can take **all** of these, pass them around to your friends."

"Oh -- ohkayyy, thank you, Mr. Becket," she managed, looking as if he were handing her a still-dripping scrap of monster skin instead of a stack of paper. (Given the amount of brilliant blue, purple and aquamarine ink that predominated, it wasn't so far off as all that.)

While she was looking for a place to set them on the little glass table with the water glasses, Yancy turned to stare directly at the camera, still with that zealot's tranquil smile, and said, "Please, my friends, **go** to www-dot-celestiareinsforever-dot-com, that's R-E-I-N-S of course, and there you will find the Truth if you only look **long** enough. You can **never** look too long or too hard into the Sun, I mean the Sun of Celestia **not** the sun in the sky that is only a **pale reflection** of Her Splendor because **that** one will burn your retinas out unless you use smoked glass like they told us in science class -- it's **true** , I checked with a flight surgeon, that's why Jumphawk pilots have tinted visors and--"

Belatedly the co-host attempted to regain what control of the situation was to be had, speaking up over Yancy's rambling screed.

"And... uh... Raleigh! What do **you** think of your brother's... um... beliefs?"

 ** _"All glory to Celestia, the One True Abiding Sun of the Universe,"_** he replied at once in a loud voice, snapping smartly to attention in his chair, hands on his knees. **_"Let her glories fill the Oceans and drive out the darkness of the Breach, let her enemies be squished beneath her Holy Hooves, let--"_**

Pentecost was pretty sure most of this had been cribbed from some video game or other, or several -- all those wars-of-the-gods RPGs had started to sound, **and look** alike, after not too long.

 ** _"Thank you VERY much_** for sharing your time with us, Rangers," said the other presenter, "I'm sure we'll be seeing you again **soon** \--" his voice saying **_Hell will freeze over first--_**

"Yup, **_in a JAEGER!_** " Yancy shouted, with a total change of tone. "Those **Kaiju** , they see us comin', they **hatin** '--" 

At which point the station went to commercial break, and the telephones began to go wild.

 

They only waited until the big helicopter had cleared NYC airspace and was beating steadily west and north before calling in to report.

"They threw us off the program, Sir," Yancy said, not sounding the least bit apprehensive. "And the rest of them **canceled** us."

 **"I know**. Good job, lads."

The subsequent resoundingly loud " **BROHOOF**!" coming over the helicopter radio undid whatever presence of mind had been regained by LOCCENT in the meantime.

"Did you like the **flyers**? I thought they were a nice touch."

"We replaced all the ink cartridges, too," Raleigh added quickly, not forgetting the important things.

"Is that a **real** website you gave them?"

"Yes, Marshal," said a scan tech who already had it up on her console. "In fact, it's on our public FTP."

She tabbed it up to the main screen, replacing the TV station which had gone over to recent sports highlights in an heroic attempt to avoid the Kaiju in the living room.

 ** _What on Earth is that?_** thought Pentecost, and said nothing. It appeared to be a shimmering mass of prismatic light covering the entire screen, with cloudy letters appearing here and there in the glow before fading out again.

"Wish you'd given me a bit of a heads-up so I could have boosted the bandwidth, boys," said Tendo. "Server's about to get hit by a storm surge, I'm bettin'."

"No, that's what makes it **awesome** , the whole site's less than 5MB so you won't even notice it," and then Yancy started going on in jargon about layered GIFs and HTML 8 and other things which evidently made technical sense, since Tendo's expression shifted from resignation to admiration very quickly.

"What's it **say**? 'Fnord' --?"

"Hah, nope, it doesn't actually say **anything** but I figured it would keep people busy trying to figure it out. It's just a random character generator using all the alphabets we had **fonts** for in the system."

**_Good God, if only we could wage PSYOPS against the Kaiju -- lad's wasted punching things, he really is..._ **

"Do you **really** have 'lots more' of those back in the helicopter?"

"Yeah, but they wouldn't let me--"

"Leaflet the city, Sir. I didn't think we **needed** any additional publicity today."

" **Excellent** call, Mr. Donati. Keep us posted on your progress and let LOCCENT know of **any** changes to your flight plan. We'll see you when you get here."

"But, **Sir** , I wanted to ask--"

 **"NO,** Mr. Becket," and he gestured sharply to LOCCENT to cut the volume before Raleigh could ask it again.

(That meant he got about thirty texts on the subject, before he could figure out how to delete them sight unseen.)

 

The PPDC's old NASA hands voted this the most epic hack of a program pilot interview in collective memory, and bits of the audio made it into ringtones for quite some time thereafter.

 

A little later on, after her shift at SD-TO's Helidrome was over, Yancy got a text with the Orson Welles clapping pic and a dry **WELL PLAYED BECKET, WELL PLAYED** from Mila Jenkins, AirMech (2nd Class) who could appreciate a good joke even if it **was** partly on her...

 

Herc Hansen was unable to comment on the programme, because he was unable to stop wheezing long enough to get any words out.

Since every time he managed to catch a breath, the Marshal lost his own composure and could do no more than gesture to the heavens, it came out even.

 

When they finally made it back home the following day, rumpled but jubilant, with their no less weary, no less cheerful escort of security and aircrew, it didn't take long for Raleigh Becket to work his way back to the business that had been on his mind all along. While his brother and the LOCCENT staff were occupied with the tech equivalent of sports cheers and high fives, he edged his way over and with hopeful eyebrows asked, "So can--"

**"No."**

**"But--"**

**_"No."_ **

**_"Please--"_ **

**"NO,** Ranger. We are **NOT** changing your security name."

That should have been the end of it, except of course it wasn't. Fifty minutes later he was deeply embroiled in the notes of a three-way right-of-way dispute between the US and Panamanian governments and the External Transport division, when the boy sidled in and started to wheedle all over again.

"But **why not?** "

" **Protocol** , Mr. Becket."

"I don't **understand** , Sir!"

"That's all right." He went on reading, waiting for the boy to take the hint.

It was looking to be a long wait.

"Can we be Peeta and Katniss instead?"

He **almost** agreed to that, almost said, "Why not?" just to get him out the door **\--** but then he caught the gleam in the younger pilot's eyes and scented a trap -- thought about it for a second, and figured it out.

**_Oh, right. EVERYBODY wanted to be Katniss, at the Academy._ **

**"NO."**

"But **_whyyy?"_**

"Because I **said** so," Pentecost said slowly, "and **I** am your commanding officer."

"But, at the Academy, **you** said every order had to have a good reason for it--"

"I did **not** say that every order needed to be explained **in detail** at the moment of it being **issued."** His voice was very boding indeed, just then. **"If** you do not think that my orders **warrant** obedience, if you **do not trust** my oversight, then **what** are you doing in the Pan Pacific Defence Corps?"

Oh, **that** touched bone -- but not brain, alas! He kept on in the face of that wounded pride, merciless.

"But **since** you **_insist_** , I will tell you. It was **very ill done** of you, Raleigh Becket, to try to **use** me to put a **fast one** over on your **brother** ," holding the boy's eyes until he saw the doubt begin to creep in. "You didn't **ask** him if **you** could be Katniss, **did** you? --I believe that's what's **technically** known as a 'jerk move,' Ranger."

The sheer bogglement of the boy's reaction at this apparent demonstration of psychic powers was unfortunately **quite** funny.

" **How** did you **_know?"_**

"D'you **honestly think** you're the first one to ever try hoodwinking me? You're **transparent** , Mr. Becket."

The obstinate innocence lasted another five seconds at the outset, and then there came the inevitable slump, the surrender, and the glumly abject misery, with definite **_wibbling_** this time. It was like kicking a puppy, and he hated being forced to do it with the proverbial fiery passion.

"I can't do **anything** right, can I, Sir?"

**_Oh GOD, here we go again!_ **

The **only** thing worse than Fiendishly Cunning Raleigh Becket (at **any** hour of the day or night, repeat, **with** the emphasis on **_ANY)_** was **Emo** Raleigh Becket.

**_If I HATED you two, I'd have picked 'William' and 'Harold'--!_ **

"I told you, you **did very well** yesterday. Your performance was **quite** impressive. Why don't you go join your brother and Mr. Choi in surveying the **damage** you two wrought? I'm sure you have **lots** of **_interesting_** emails waiting for you by now," he added encouragingly. "Or just go to **bed** \-- that was a **lot** of travelling you did in a **very** short time, I expect you're worn out by now."

"Oh no, Sir, **we** slept on way home. I'm **fine!** \--I wonder if anybody's figured out it doesn't **say** anything yet... " He wandered out again, whistling, his hands jammed in his pockets, all resentments forgotten.

**_\--To be young enough to sleep the sleep of the just on a helicopter -- and having your worst mischief be trying to gank a cooler username from your big brother...whose own worst mischief to date's been those stupid faked photos of "Planking In Anchorage"--!_ **

Which had been bad not so much because of the angry phone calls from City Hall, but because they were heart-attack inducingly realistic, and he'd thought for just a moment there that they'd actually **been** horsing about on top of parking garages, and yes, City Hall, somehow, because of some ancient meme--

And then the Marshal bowed his head almost to his clasped hands, because it was just **too** depressing.

**_Babies! A bloody nursery, sent to face the lions -- and the ones with fangs and claws only wanted to KILL them, not shred their souls until they feel lower than the dirt!_ **

He'd said at the start that playing the hero on television was part of the job, from the first welcome to new cadets at the Academy, but he could tell that they didn't really understand why, or how **complex** the balancing act of playing up to public expectations while still accomplishing what needed to be done **without** losing support could be -- how they had to both show themselves something to be respected, a force **capable** of defeating the foe not simply in actuality but in appearance too, so that the general American public, and **not** just the bits of it at immediate risk of being stomped on, would continue to feel that the Jaeger Program was worth supporting with their oh-so-resented tax dollars...and at the same time, **not** so distant and/or dreadful that no one dared to treat them with anything but respect -- that was **his** job.

It was **theirs** to be the affable public face of the Corps, and yet not allow themselves to be taken advantage of, by those who would gladly do so. And **that** they had to manage on their own -- even with the aid of (and thank goodness for!) the very long collective memory of the old NASA hands in dealing with this particularly American brand of nonsense -- which they'd done, in their own creatively deranged way!

Does it help any that, if I COULD tell them what was what -- if they could even grasp the 'wheels within wheels' of political machinations the Corps has to navigate on an hourly basis -- they'd be as on board as they are with the idea of blasting Kaiju?

 ** _Not really,_** he decided.

On his desk, the lurid sheen of the **_CELESTIAL REIN OF TRUTH!_** flyer glowed like a patch of "blue goo" in the monitor's glare.

**_Still, they seem to have intuited a certain degree of the political nonsense -- and met it with all due respect, all on their own!_ **

 

In the end, the Beckets' performance yielded very mixed results.

The cranky calls from Washington asking what drugs **exactly** the brothers had been on for that interview were both worth it, **and** easily deflected by pointing out just how obnoxious **everyone** , from political figures to military advisors to public relations department staff, found the behavior of the hosts -- so by the end of it the complainers from the technical if not the cultural capitol were not only restored to good humour but felt that the Corps had scored a point against the human-feeding social vultures!

The upmarket channel talk shows with more formal programming -- and reputations to uphold--avoided them like plague dogs, as had been anticipated.

But the indy stations **couldn't** get enough of the Beckets, whether in the clickbait hope that they'd do something even **more** outrageous, or because they thoroughly approved of the devastation inflicted upon their senior competitors, **or** because they wholeheartedly supported the surrealist response to a sureal situation.

The savvy laughed until they couldn't breathe and declared the Beckets to be PR geniuses, some fans of the series attacked them for **mocking** the whole thing, yet others claimed the Beckets as icons and the **truest** of true fans, while Conspiracists and Nu-Illuminati alike ranted, vanishing down ever deeper rabbit holes chasing after Yancy's non-existent message -- and religious leaders of **several** denominations ( **not** only Kaiju-venerating ones) denounced the Beckets, Pentecost, the PPDC, **and** Princess Celestia as **_demonic_**.

The flamewars that followed **that** even made the nightly news.

And the brothers remained cheerfuly impervious to it all, happy that they got to punch monsters **and** get paid for it while wearing cool bomber jackets! What more **_was_** there in life, really?

 

Years later, Raleigh Becket would finally understand the significance of his code name, while helping Mako and Marshal Hansen sort through Marshal Pentecost's books and papers -- he'd thought that he would be of little use, since he'd **never** been part of the command structure and having been so long out of the loop that internal files would be meaningless to him, and it felt inappropriate, handling any of the personal ones.

But it turned out that they needed him there to do it, because they couldn't -- every attempt ended with the two of them crying on each other's shoulder, or holding hands and crying, or leaning on each other's shoulders, holding hands, crying, while he and Max hovered around the edges with the same helpless bafflement.

He couldn't help them more than they were helping each other, he couldn't make decisions about any of the materials that were overwhelming them with memories, and he couldn't make it all go away, either.

What he **could** do, even with his own bandages, was open each crate, number it, go through the contents and enter it into a spreadsheet via tablet -- slow, methodical, unexciting work that didn't get any faster and didn't reveal to him any mysteries, only gave him more as he sorted through slim volumes of poetry in several languages, old atlases with countries in them whose names he didn't even recognize, newer atlases in other languages that at least he did recognize, books on art, geology, astronomy, archeology, mathematics, **_cooking_** \-- nothing that seemed related to the Jaeger program, or even to military aviation.

Then he came across old manuals for aircraft that were no longer flying, and began to understand why the whole business of ebook manuals was such a big deal. **_Oh, THAT'S what the pilots were carrying in those bags, in the old movies--!_** and was **extremely** grateful that Jaeger pilots **didn't** have to lug huge satchels of hardcopy with them on every mission.

**_Hadn't had._ **

His vision started to blur and he quickly pulled himself out of it -- God, it was so easy to start chasing the RABIT, without even need of a Bridge -- just to hear Mako say in an almost steady voice that she was taking Max for a run, and Range-- Marshal Hansen, that he needed to make some more phone calls overseas before it got too late, leaving him alone in Pentecost's quarters for the first time.

It was beyond weird, and wrong-feeling -- this wasn't like the time at the Academy when they'd had Taare and Ms. Singh decoy him out of his office with a "situation" at the school docks security station, so they could wrap the top of his desk with industrial tinfoil from the mess hall, because someone had looked up, and quietly circulated the information, that his birthday was coming up soon.

So they'd gotten a sheet of posterboard the size of his desk and everyone had written birthday greetings and drawn Jaegers (or helicopters) on it, and had a chopper make a detour to a store in Vancouver to get a box of the kinds of chocolate bars they'd never made in America, everyone chipping in for it -- and there hadn't been any **shortage** of volunteers to carry out the mission of getting it all into place and concealing it, but they'd elbowed everyone else out of the way for the task, and why did he remember that now, when so much else was just smoke and dust in his mind anymore?

Swallowing hard, he moved on to the next box, and lifted out of it where it lay right at the top an old, fragile hardback book with a plastic library cover on it -- he was fairly certain by now that the man had **never** purchased a book new, which was strange, because certainly if anyone could afford it, a senior officer would? But this one was worn even among all the others, and practically fell open in his fingers when he lifted it up to see; this in turn was partly because there were several folded, yellowed newsletters tucked inside it, and when he lifted them up, he realized that it was a book of cartoons....

But not cartoons like he'd ever seen before -- no matter how 'edgy' he thought the humor of his own day was, this was pure unprotected razor-wire! Jokes about planes crashed into mess halls, bombs dropped on their own headquarters, about navigators who merrily flew the wrong way into their own anti-aircraft guns or into the water, about every possible sort of dangerously stupid, daring, or simply **oblivious** behavior you could think of, and some you couldn't until you'd seen them **done** \-- it was horrible, and he felt horrible for laughing at them, and a couple of them were actually really racist, and just made him feel horrible and shocked, and everything about these jokes was morbid, sick, twisted and treated **death** as a **_farce_**!

But the constant images of the hapless but eternally cheerful pilot who looked so much like Tintin (even had a little dog!) strolling away from the wreckage with the serene conviction that nothing mattered so long as you could "walk away from" it all, and his equally helpless, eternally ranting commander -- well, he could **see** how that was something that might have **_spoken_** to the Marshal, even if it made his face heat up imagining himself -- in the other man's imagination -- as the unfortunate Mr. Prune!

Something began to tick over, in his subconscious, gradually undoing tumbler after tumbler until the last bar fell away and the lock clicked open--

"Mhh," he gasped, half in confusion and half in recognition, and all of it with the pain of moving a limb that's not been shifted beyond rebandaging for far too long.

"What's wrong?"

"Uh--" It was **wrong** that a man as large and solid as Hansen could move so like a ghost, he hadn't heard him come in at all, let alone kneel down right behind him! Not knowing what to say, he motioned with the book a little, and then remembering his bad arm, lifted it up so he could see it more easily.

"Oh..." The older pilot touched the yellowed pages with a hesitant, reverent brush of his fingertips. **_"This--"_** He flipped the cover open to the front, where the flyleaf had written on it in what looked like calligraphy pen, 'Thomas Pentecost' -- and then under that, in a newer ink, 'To Luna From Your Old Granddad,' and under that in ballpoint pen, in a neat cursive handwriting, 'Luna Pentecost,' and below that, in a sharp, almost jagged small-caps style, 'Tamsin Sevier' --

 ** _Why did he never put HIS name in it?_** Raleigh wondered.

"And a couple of original issues of 'Tee Emm,' those must be rarer than gold anymore--"

"My code name -- security -- it was Percival." He shook his head, his forehead wrinkling in disbelief at that little detail, leaping out so starkly after all these years. "I hated it -- **begged** to have it changed -- but he just...wouldn't **budge**. Kept makin' up rule after rule why it **had** to stay Percival." With a quick sniff he added, "Yancy was Galahad, so we thought it was from the Knights of the Round Table. But now...I'm thinkin'...maybe **this** was what **_gave_** him the idea."

There was another, guiltier flash across the Marshal's face, and he half-frowned, as though worried of the effect of his answer.

"You're right, it was -- it was just... it didn't **mean** anything..." Then he shook his head. "No, that's not true. It **was** rude, and we **did** have a few laughs at your expense, I'm sorry." He looked so sad, because he was trying not to smile at the memories, and that made it worse. "You drove him round the bend so much, and yelling at you -- well, Stacker was **never** a shouty man, and besides, it never did any **good** , so..."

Quickly, to stop the older man from apologizing, Raleigh flipped the pages back to one that had made him choke, that skinny blond pilot in his bomber jacket, eyebrows raised in eternal incomprehension, standing blankly while his commander raged himself scarlet, mustaches on end and bristling like an angry cat--

"Oh gawd, that one, yeah, he used to just text me that sometimes, I knew he was havin' a really bad day at the Academy then -- it wasn't **_ever_** just **you** , you understand? He put the book in storage after -- after Knifehead, he couldn't stand it then--"

" **It's okay,"** Raleigh said, earnestly, because it **was** \-- understanding this, he **finally** understood something much more important -- that his Marshal not only hadn't hated him, had never hated him **at all** , but instead had cared about him, about them all, so much it nearly killed him -- had worried every time **not** because he lacked confidence in them, but because he knew as they did not how Murphy ruled their world -- something the Jumphawk crews had tried to teach them too, but they'd never **understood** because everyone had done their jobs so well and thoroughly, until a storm too big for any of them had struck--

Finally -- but on a deeper level still, hadn't he **always** understood that? Wasn't that the very reason he'd crawled out of the hole of his pain and disappointment, when Pentecost had come to him in that absolute abyss of despair, when he'd been forced to realize that he'd wasted all that time accomplishing **_absolutely nothing,_** instead of doing what he could to protect his people with what was left of him?

Had offered him **no** words of consolation, no promises of hope or victory or **anything good** at all to come of it, except what joy he could take in the action itself -- had offered him **death** , and a sword with which to meet it --

And done **everything** he could to make sure they survived it, regardless.

"It **was** the other, though, too. He **did think** of you two that way -- 'pure of heart, with the strength of ten,' because of how you never quarreled, you never caused any trouble for people, not like... well. He was **petrified** somethin' terrible was gonna happen to you, every time you rode out, and--" Hansen broke off, looking at him with that aching regret. "I'm sorry, I didn't **mean** to bring up painful memories--"

Raleigh sat very still, closing his eyes.

 ** _Yancy,_** he thought, and though it hurt, it wasn't the stabbing knife-in-his-side pain that made him freeze up, any more.

 ** _Yancy,_** he said again, and then -- **_Marshal_** \-- because Pentecost would always and ever -- and on some level, **only** \-- be **_Sir_** to him...but it was unsettling as well, disorienting but not in a bad way, to understand that he'd had friends and shared familiarity with them, just the same as anyone else, and one of them was right beside him.

And then, feeling oddly untethered and split-brained, **_Sensei_** \--

The shard in his heart was gone, the ice-like sheet that kept all his memories of them walled away, safe and unmoving pictures of a past unchanged & unchanging, had been melted in the fires of the Breach, and now his ghosts walked with him -- but not **hungry** ones, not jealous or angry at the living who survived, but the ones who became the guardian spirits whose existence had caused the nearest thing to a religious war before the Celestians, between cadets whose Christianities said people could **never** become angels, and everyone else--

 ** _" 'Life is pain,'_** Sir," he said hoarsely, " **'Anyone who says differently is selling something.'** "

And when Mako came back with Max, she found the two men leaning against each other, holding to each other awkwardly around their damaged arms, crying into each other's shoulders, Herc gently stroking Raleigh's hair the way he had done for her when she was little and lonely and frightened and angry, and even **not** so little, and not good at being brave and strong yet--

She gently took the old book that Raleigh was holding like a glass grenade and put it on the desk, and then sat down next to them and wrapped her arms around both of them, pulling Max onto her lap, and they let phones ring through to the system while they mourned, now finally having both time **and** strength for it--

Raleigh wasn't quite sure what had changed, why Mako and Marshal Hansen were able to pull themselves together after that and go through everything that needed to be sorted without further breakdowns, just because **_he_** had broken down and lost it, himself -- but then, he knew that he didn't **need** to understand it, either, because they could manage it for him.

They argued about the book, who should have it, should keep it -- it was a family **heirloom** , so Mako should have it -- it was a **pilot** heirloom, so Herc should have it -- and Raleigh both did and didn't want it but didn't feel right about asking for it -- so it went back into the crate (but which one was now logged and tagged so it wasn't disappearing, just set aside for now.)

And when, a little while later, as he was quietly sorting the last box, Mako and Herc having gone to another meeting with the local authorities about both the rebuilding and long-term plans, he found an old paperback with a strange orange-and-blue cover so retro it looked contemporary again, its binding so cracked with age that he hardly dared to pick it up let alone open it.

The edition wasn't familiar, but it was by a writer whose name he recognized all too well from high school, and miserable, dull, marrow-draining lectures, and **also** the humiliation of his failure to convince the department head that this proved punctuation and capitalization **didn't** matter and therefore shouldn't be **marked down** \-- and it fell open in his hands because there was something **in** it--

And that **something** being a photo of Yancy in his dress uniform, taken when they'd first been chosen as Rangers, forever joyful and fearless and unforgotten, slipping down into his startled fingers to reveal words in the middle of the page

                           who used to  
                           ride a watersmooth-silver  
                                                               stallion  
                 and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat  
                                                                                                            Jesus  
                 he was a handsome man  
                                                                    and what i want to know is  
                 how do you like your blueeyed boy  
                 Mister Death

He froze, and the pain went through him like chain lightning again -- and then passed, leaving him grounded still and hyper-aware, as though the cheap brittle paper and the glossy inkjet print were a Bridge in themselves linking him to both of them, both the men whose lives and deaths had shaped him beyond his reckoning.

All those years of walling himself away with his pain, it walled off in turn from his conscious encountering, thinking himself **alone** in his grief and his memories of his brother, never **once** thinking how their catastrophe had hurt the ones they'd left behind in death and desertion -- thinking himself abandoned, cast off instead of fugitive, discarded as failures both, the way the media had described them --

Hadn't understood how he'd been **protected** , sheltered from that shitstorm before and after he fled, **allowed** to reject the Corps, allowed to find his own way to healing -- except he hadn't, hadn't even **tried** to do anything but punish himself, in a way that could still be of service in the cause to which he had once so joyfully dedicated his life...

**_To which WE dedicated our lives--_ **

Because it wasn't fair to **Yancy** to take away **his** decisions either, was it? Put him on a pedestal as a plaster saint, the helpless victim smashed by his brother's incompetence? But he'd **finally** looked at the after action reports -- the first Anchorage report that they hadn't written, that he'd no contribution to, except his confused, half-sedated answers to Tendo trying to piece together the LOCCENT telemetry and the damaged black-box recordings -- and also at those of other Jaegers lost since, all the stories that the mainstream news had **kept quiet** , or muted the volume on, so as to avoid losing the advertising dollars and euros of their corporate sponsors who were **_also_** Wall profiteers.

The picture, no matter how incomplete, was clear: the Enemy -- and how **strange** it was to think of them like that, not in a vague general hostile sense but yes, a coordinated intelligent force seeking to eliminate humanity, **not** random alien beasts blundering through a portal, drawn to heat and concentrations of prey, after all-- had been working systematically to come up with something, **anything** , that could defeat Jaegers on a consistent basis.

It had been **hard** , because of the intermittent breach access and the fact that humanity kept compulsively upgrading things even without an obvious need to do so yet, if we could at all afford it -- but they'd worked out our weaknesses and come up with answers, and they'd picked remote Anchorage -- remote, small, guarded by only one Jaeger... **and** just across from the Jaeger Academy, which might or might not have been coincidence, **or** factored into their plans. It wasn't like the two Drs. G had been able to back up the Hive Mind onto a USB drive, unfortunately!

Every Kaiju had been a prototype, and **they'd** drawn the short straw, the one that had been built to kill Jaegers with brutal efficiency. The bleared vision of that army of half-built Knifeheads, rank on rank being forged like bayonets of stony flesh, **still** gave him waking nightmares --

**_We were just the first in a new phase of the War we didn't know we were fighting. The first, but NOT the last--_ **

And he thought then of the last, of poor, thrice-damned Chuck who'd never **gotten** that the bargain you paid for riding the lightning, the going-up in fame, was that eventually Murphy **would** win, and the price was to go down in flame -- and always had been, that had **never** been hidden from them from the first day at the Academy, all their instructors had tried to tell them that the odds **would** catch up to them, sooner or later-- but then **_they_** hadn't believed it either, until it was too late--

And Stacker Pentecost, who'd always known it, and tried to shield them despite that ancient inescapable price, even while they'd laughed at his worries and his mother-henning of them, because there hadn't ever **been** one they couldn't walk away from, yet -- and who had been so proud of them, when they **had** walked away from that incredible crash, when **he'd** given up (but **Mako** hadn't!) and they'd **_only_** walked away from it thanks to the help from ground control, talking them through the untried braking, landing like cosmonauts had, but with only their own jets for a parachute --

He thought of that smile, and the words of praise, and how he'd felt at them instead of what followed, and of Yancy, who'd wanted it just as much as he ever did, for all he'd smiled and shaken his head at the Marshal and his doubts -- had only wanted to make him proud, by saving **everyone** \-- and that secret part of him that **_still_** envied the Weis their fate, dying as they had lived in unbroken completion, finally dissipated in ash on the wind.

**_No, we NEVER stood alone--_ **

And he set the fragile little book of despairing and tender poems by that ferociously-cynical, indescribably-sentimental veteran of the Great War aside, for himself -- and braced himself to go and look next at all the lists of the dead, to see which of their old friends had fallen, and when, and **then** go tracking down the survivors, assuming they still wanted to see him. (Mako would have elbowed him, for that line of thought, but she wasn't here to catch him.)

And then he needed to go grab Tendo and make him **stop** for an hour or two -- someone else could keep minding the store for a bit while they put LOCCENT's organizational capabilities at the service of the city's rebuilding, just like the rest of the Shatterdome's resources -- and have a drink together, or more than one, probably.

Because they needed to **talk** , about the past -- **all** of it, not just the good old days -- and **then** about the future, and what they were going to do once the dust had settled from all the governments crashing down in the aftershocks of the terrible revelation that they had been dead wrong about the Wall, fatally so, and Pentecost correct.

There were still some few in positions of power who didn't **want** to believe that the Enemy, having once and then twice **opened** a portal, could quite conceivably open **another** , and there was **_no way to know_** if it would be in the Pacific this time -- but against them stood the mute evidence of Sydney's damage, and the fact that the Breach **had** been closed, after almost seven years of failure.

The world knew that **they** knew the truth, that there was still another world out there trying to **invade** them, and who knew how long it would take them to recover from that unexpected strike on their base -- unexpected on both sides, because while in hindsight it made perfect military sense that they'd have mobilized right by it, or even opened it right beside their base -- that sense of it all being **_natural phenomena_** was hard to shake. Well, they were going to have to, that was all.

And like it or not, he was going to have to be part of training future generations of pilots, and he needed to know how they'd done it -- how they'd **endured** , after Knifehead, and his flight into his own darkness, losing them one after another, all the fallen Jaeger teams who had stood for as long as possible, and then gone down against the increasing strength of the foe -- how they hadn't lost it completely over the past five years.

Because **that** was going to be part of his job, too, and he needed to be **worthy** of his Marshal -- of both of them, from now on.

And -- this was going to be the hardest, but he needed to connect with Mako, catch her in her frantic need to work and not think and convince her they **needed** to follow his last -- well, it wasn't an order, it was **permission** , and they needed to do it before it got even harder, needed to **not** keep wrapping up the memories and carrying them around like relics, he'd **done** that and it didn't help--

 ** _We need to share what we have, not just for us, but for him -- because we need to UNDERSTAND, where we come from, how we got here -- and who he WAS, if we're going to carry on his work_.** Not that Raleigh expected to understand much -- he felt like a kid trying to look at the stars with a cheap box store telescope, just from sorting the man's papers. But he had a deep certainty that by knowing more of how Mako had seen him, he would see more of what he'd totally missed, during all those clueless, happy days at the Academy, and SD-AK.

Part of him absolutely **dreaded** finding out what exactly the 'lot about you' that she'd heard had contained -- he hadn't realized at that stressed-out moment that she wasn't talking about the **media** , primarily, and when he thought of all the things that Pentecost **could** have shared with her, over the years, he cringed and couldn't stop -- but then, she'd **seen** him being a dumbass already, in and out of the Drift, and cherished him in spite of it! It would be all right.

It would be **better** than all right.

His eyes took on a serious, focused expression, one that he'd have recognized -- even if it was only ever so faintly echoed there -- as his old commander's, had he looked in the mirror. Abruptly he got up and went to the old wood desk and opened one of the drawers that he'd opened **once** , and then put what he'd found there far back, behind and underneath the folders that were there as well.

Now he took them out, both his and Yancy's old Ranger wings, the insignia that properly went with their dress uniforms, and which he'd left for Pentecost -- left out on his made-up bunk, folded, with everything in proper place, so there could be no mistaking his message -- when he'd vanished.

He'd **kept** them both.

Kept them, and close at hand, **not** boxed up somewhere safe.

And he'd been unable to **process** that, two days ago. Was it his own form of penance? Or had he kept them as 'next-of-kin' for pilots who had none, though they'd laughingly put down Tendo when told they couldn't put each other since they **served** together -- and hadn't **that** been a horrible thing to do to a friend, even as a joke (but it hadn't been one, really, it hadn't at all) -- or had he kept them, trusting, hoping that **someday** Raleigh would return of his own free will?

It **had** been, in the end, even if there'd been plenty of kicking and screaming inside along the way -- but he'd **always** hoped that someday his Marshal would come and find him, no matter how he'd hidden himself--

His fingers traced the upreaching feathers and the bright star between them, before running across the bar of his name and rank.

**_Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear..._ **

He pinned the wings onto his sweater, because this was the Resistance and they could do that now if they wanted, and he **did** want it, and he slipped Yancy's wings into his fatigue pocket to give to her, because he knew they'd be kept safe in her hands -- just as **he** was.

 

A very little while later, Herc and Tendo would share with him the contents of their old friend's music collection, and his mind would break all over again.

"I don't know **why** he didn't just dropkick us off the roof of the 'Dome, the way we **butchered** those tunes -- **_we_** thought he just didn't like **_pop music."_**

"Well, he didn't, before we started **hangin' out,"** Herc said, one side of his mouth lifting a little. "Not before the time we went home with each other's iPods. That was kind of a shock, for me --hit the button for what I thought was gonna be The Clash and got Benjamin Britten instead, like, what **IS** this strange, eerie stuff? How did it get on my player?"

Mako put her hands over her mouth to stifle something, not quite either a laugh or a sob, and Raleigh blinked hard as the light glinted off the band on her wrist. She'd taken the insignia and carefully formed it on a press into a smooth curve, not quite closed, and used the pins to attach it to a leather cuff.

Now the shield rested above her hand, the spans on either side wrapping around her arm, his brother's name where they would always see it, where he would always be with them.

They had thought -- they couldn't help **but** \-- of doing the same with the other one, but neither of them could alter anything that had been his, yet. So it sat by Raleigh's computer, when he was working at it, and he carried it around in his pocket when he wasn't, in a little piece of cloth sewn up for it

"An' then I got a text, **_Do I have your iPod?_** so I said, Well, if yours is full of **_alien chants,_** then yeah, we're mixed up. **Did** you know," he said, looking at Mako with amazement, "he **never listened to rock music** before we met? Like, he **never listened**. The closest he got was the Pogues, 'cause his old man would go spare over that. **Blew.** **My. Mind**." (To the MTV generation, this was something even more incredible than cell phones, which at least had existed in fiction prior to becoming reality!)

"Well, if you're gonna **rebel** , rebel music is the way to go," Tendo said solemnly, lifting up his glass. They were sitting on crates around another stack of crates in the bay where their Jaeger had once rested, because the mess hall felt too open, because no place felt more appropriate than **_here_**.

Because it was the Shatterdome, the stack of crates forming the table was seriously over-engineered and Max was snoring in the cave formed by the quasi-geodesic arches that made it easy for them to get their feet under it, and the entire structure was solid enough for them all to lean on it without the slightest wobble. (That was what happened, when you had Jaeger engineers and techs making packing-case furniture.)

Since over a third of the PPDC at SD-HK was local, a lot of people were at home off base with their families, or taking it in shifts volunteering with the recovery efforts, since there wasn't anything else for them to do besides routine systems maintenance, aside from what they were doing here to support the reconstruction. Outside, their helicopters were taking it in shifts round the clock to shift rubble or airlift in emergency supplies, the internal transports were shuffling big crates all around the bay floors to be redirected where the HK authorities asked them, and LOCCENT's computers were currently put to a different sort of monitoring & logistics duty.

A random assortment of beer bottles were in one of the open crates, donations from local shops, salvaged from wrecked shelves -- Raleigh recognized some of them from his 21st birthday party, when SD-AK had solemnly presented him with a crate containing one bottle from every country in the PPDC, on Yancy's suggestion.

The Australian pilot was drinking water, because of his pain meds (Raleigh found topical ointment quite sufficient for his burns, and he wanted to be alert) but he was fidgeting and rubbing carefully at his shoulder, so he leaned over and asked him quietly if it was time for another dose yet?

Startled, the older man checked his watch, raised his eyebrows in surprise and nodded; Raleigh quietly took the container away from him, opened it, took out his pills and put them into his palm before putting the rest away.

**_I couldn't take care of you, Sir -- but I CAN take care of your friend, at least--_ **

He nodded to Marshal Hansen, letting him know that he was there to be called on, for anything, and the Australian gave a small nod in return, blinking hard, so he put a gentle hand on his good arm, patting it, for which the other man gave him a very ragged smile in turn.

It almost broke Raleigh's heart, because even though he and Chuck had, well, hated each other pretty much before they even met, ever since he'd seen the kid on TV going on and on about his awesomeness and not giving a shit that his **_own city_** had just been trashed without warning, dissing the dead Rangers who hadn't been **lucky enough** to get the one and only Mark V **in existence** , and brushing off UN-mandated dereliction of their sworn duty as "following orders" --

\--only to find out that those **orders** were, instead, a summons to a duty still more awe-inspiring and dangerous than their long coastal watchkeeping -- for which he'd blamed, and thus hated Raleigh in return, as much or more as the Marshal, who was too far out of range for his anger -- still, it couldn't be easy to lose a **child** , let alone your co-pilot, even if it **wasn't** in the throes of combat.

Raleigh not being **much** given to introspection, being more a man of action himself, it **never** would have occurred to him to compare his own **reaction** to those same orders -- but Hercules Hansen couldn't help it -- couldn't help but recall how the young man beside him had simply frowned in confusion, then thoughtfully asked the tactical questions, and then nodded his acceptance, though with his doubts still plain all over his face.

But he'd never balked, never complained, never even **_questioned_** the worthwhile **nature** of the plan --

That night, Stacker had told him how when he'd finally run him to ground, Becket had come to meet him before they'd fully set down, how he'd challenged him and argued -- because he wouldn't have **been** a Becket if he hadn't, **that** would have been a clear sign that this was a pod person and not the man he was looking for -- and made him **beg** his indulgence, or tried it on, at least!

But he'd had his bag already on his shoulder, his protests hadn't been more than token, and the Marshal added that he'd dragged out of him on the long flight home some details of the reality of the Wall-building that the media concealed, in the course of which it slipped out how he'd been taking the most risky and dangerous work shifts atop it, and when asked **_why_** , had smirked that it **_paid better_** \-- when here he was in **rags** , looking like death barely warmed over!

"Did you find out the **real** reason?"

"Lad's a **fool."**

"That's **not** the word you're lookin' for," and Stacker had only snorted, and said that he no longer felt **guilty** for dragging him back into this --

 **"At least** he'll die with clean clothes on his back and a decent **meal** in his belly," and they'd gone back to running the numbers, again and again, as if they could **force** the outcome by just getting the calculations right, a bit of sympathetic magic--

 ** _Why couldn't YOU have been more like that?_** he asked the night, answering as always, **_Because you only HAD me -- if you'd been raised by Stacker, you wouldn't have been so messed up--_**

But young Becket had only come under **his** influence at seventeen, already almost an adult by the clock, and Mako hadn't been much younger than Chuck when she was adopted, and he had to face the brutal truth, that **both** his parents had failed the kid, that they'd screwed him up even **before** the Kaiju came.

They'd given him everything in their power and **asked** for nothing and felt bad that they couldn't give him **more** , told him he was the best at everything and made excuses when he **wasn't** , and damned if he didn't know (had always known it, really) why Jun Li had talked about how he'd **seen** what happened to those only sons who were treated like little princes, even if he **was** only remarking on his nephews back home!

There **had** to be some middle ground, between breaking your children's will like **their** old men had done, and giving them **no** boundaries at all, until like an untrained puppy it was all the sudden not **cute** any more, what with the fangs and the fury in a full-grown body -- but they'd never figured it out...

He knuckled his eyes, and young Becket patted him again in attempted comfort, having no idea how that rubbed salt in his every wound.

But Mako was talking about how Stacker had sung her the Bunny Song when she'd first come to them, when they were trying to get her to rest in the hospital there and she had begged him to sing it to her -- but he didn't know it, it **wasn't** part of his childhood, so he'd asked the orderlies.

But she'd only wanted **_him_** to sing it, nobody else -- he was her one surety, her sole guarantee that another Kaiju couldn't come to get her, no matter he was staggering on his feet, all over bandages under his fatigues, being The Marshal still by purest willpower--

He stayed in her sight, or kept her in his, and because of **who** he was, and **how** , nobody in or out of the Corps acted or thought as if it were the least bit strange to have a primary school kid at disaster response team meetings, or in and out of medical wards, or at press conferences -- and so she'd thought the same, ever since. She'd just **been there** , safe in his shadow, safe in the heart of the Corps, and they'd folded her in under their wings, away from the media, away from all dangers... **except** for those they carried with them, being **what** they were, **who** they were.

But that first night, when she was desperate for **something** familiar, some one remaining scrap of her old life, of her parents -- because she **knew** that everything was gone, that was how it went in the stories, families slaughtered, and one child left to avenge them, she knew her fairy tales and her TV shows, and she was old enough to remember the earthquake, even though her parents had tried to keep as much of that news from her as possible -- she'd **insisted** that he sing her the lullaby her mother had sung, demanded it as if it were a midwinter rose, that she couldn't live without--

So he'd had **her** teach **him** , right there, as though it were **perfectly normal** for the head of the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, the man who'd single-handedly (in the end!) taken down the worst threat Tokyo had ever faced, who was facing the loss of his co-pilot and not able to give in to either his injuries **or** his grief, because too many people **_needed_** him still, to sing a children's song to a little girl in front of all the military personnel and police and doctors who wanted his attention, because for him it **was** , it was just what needed to be done.

And so she sang it, the silly little verse about the rabbit trying to catch the full moon, and somehow she **didn't** choke up -- somehow, the acknowledging of those **old** tears and terrors was **enough** to cancel out...

At the second repeat, Raleigh joined her, a little hesitant but mostly on-target:

 _Usagi, usagi_  
          _Nani mite haneru_  
          _Jugoya otsuki-sama_  
          _Mite haneru_

As they finished she looked at him oddly.

"You know, I could **swear**...I **_heard_** you sing that, before."

The other pilot didn't say **anything** , though his eyes got a little wild at the edges.

"Maybe in the Drift?" Tendo suggested.

"Maybe..." She frowned. "But. Mm! I don't **think** so. It's like," her forehead wrinkled up in that way that made Raleigh's heart wrench every time, now that he recognized the gesture. "It's like I remember it on my **headphones**. But I was **on the computer** \-- not listening to music. **Maybe** I'm just imagining it."

Raleigh took a deep breath, let it out, and swallowed. When he answered, it was all in a rush.

"There...used to be **this show** online, our class at the Academy was way into it, you dubbed videos and they got voted on--"

Mako stared at him, her jaw dropping, her eyebrows shooting up to her bangs.

"Super Chibi Neato Neko? **You** are **_kidding!_** You were **_on_** it? What was your **handle?"**

Raleigh took another deep breath -- thought, ** _They already KNOW the worst about me!_** \-- and said, " **LionO_1998."**

Tendo solemnly reached over and patted him on his unburned arm, declaring solidarity without need of a word -- **_We've ALL got skeletons of stupidity in our closets, dude--_**

But it didn't mean anything to Mako, except--

" **You** did the one with the **cat** who was raising all the baby bunnies!"

He nodded, still a little shaky after reading Kim's file, how she'd fallen to the National Guard after keeping them at bay long enough for L.A.'s SWAT teams to decide to stop the 'Dome closing riot by knockout gassing **_everyone_** , army and civilian alike, so that the casualties were much reduced from what they could have been -- and wondered again if it would have made **any** difference if he'd been able to tell her how sorry he was about Ferni -- ** _God, charging a Kaiju with a Jumphawk!_** \-- and again thought, ** _No, she was a HERO, that was HER post, HER fight, her CALL--_**

One more deep breath.

**_This is how we remember our past--_ **

"Yeah, that was me and **the_realest_katniss** \-- Kim Metzger, she went into Security, she--" Mako gripped his hand again.

"I **know**. I typed all the **letters** , for him to sign." And he leaned into her shoulder, letting her keep him upright on their two crates pushed together.

"Mh. We were **surprised** we got that far, it was a last-minute decision, to go with **that** one--my **timing** was kinda off--"

"It was **SO cute,** that's why. **I** voted for it."

"So what was **yours?"** She blushed and ducked her head and shook it

"I'll show you **_later_** ," not looking at either Tendo or Marshal Hansen, and he didn't tease her about it or press her, and neither did they.

 **"I** used to drag him to **karaoke bars** , whenever we got together," Hansen said, with another broken smile, and blew both their minds all over again, and his LOCCENT chief's as well.

 **"That**...doesn't **sound** like the Marshal," Tendo said with an eyebrow he couldn't control. "I -- we **talked** about music a lot, but -- I -- just **can't** \--"

"Well, it took a bit of doing to get him into it, and -- he **always** did it a bit **_different_** , y'know? Like, **_'Spanish Bombs'_** in't a Clash tune you hear covered much, to say the least. He bloody well **owned** it."

 ** _"Jesus,"_** and the musician in their midst raised his glass in another, reverent toast.

Their elder drew a deep breath, and gave them what he could.

"There was **this one song** , old pub tune he picked up at Lossiemouth back when, first time I ever heard him sing -- first day we **met** , it was, back in L.A., 2004, gawd, **that** was the **_weirdest_** day of my **life** , thought we were gonna end up in the **nick** for a bit, there -- and **then** I thought he was the most **rule-bound, Lawful piker** on the face of the earth, what was I **thinkin'** bringing this judgy Brit to me in-laws' house?"

A real, unrestrained smile crept over his face.

"And, I swear, if you'd **told** me we'd ever be fightin' bunyips together or plottin' to scam the whole damn **world** out of its pocket change, I'd figure you must have found a **really** good dealer -- not that anybody saw **this** coming, but **everybody'd thought** about the Apocalypse, how it'd come and, y'know, how to **deal** with it, back then. Y2K, Mad Max, even zombies, we did **all** that way before your generation!"

He shook his head, wonderingly.

"So I had this **idea** who he was, and then he **changed everything** on me, like that sayin', about still waters runnin' deep? -- I just had to keep tryin' to keep up, not that I ever **could."**

(At no point in the hour had it occurred to either of the two veteran Rangers that mixing heavy-duty pain medication with strong emotion **might** not be the most prudent of ideas.)

"So that song, yeah, that night he stood up an' did it acapella 'cause he didn't expect anyone'd have it -- I, uh, I, **maybe** I can remember all the lines, in the proper order--"

And without further ado he started, with surprising certainty for one who'd been so uncertain, in a soft clear tenor:

 _Oh, all the money that ever I had,_  
          _I've spent it in good company,_

**_(And hadn't Stacker thought that, ALWAYS? and so here we all are--)_ **

_And all the harm that ever I did,_  
          _Alas it was to none but me--_

**_(If only that WERE truth, for any of us)_ **

_And all I've done for want of wit_  
          _To memory now I can't recall,_

**_(If only it were POSSIBLE, to forget)_ **

_So fill to me the parting glass,_  
          _Good night and joy be with you all!_

The next lines broke him all over again with their truth--

 _Of all the comrades that ever I had,_  
          _They're sorry for my goin' away,_

**_(Oh -- but too late, too late to stop this now)_ **

_And all the sweethearts that ever I had,_  
          _They would wish me one more day to stay,_

**_(It was always too late...)_ **

_But since it has so ordered been_  
          _By a time to rise and a time to fall,_

\--he hadn't **meant** to bring back the memory of Raleigh's last words, or what he'd **thought** were his last words--

 _Come fill to me the parting glass_  
          _Good night an' joy be with you all!_

\--but by the time he **realized** , it had been too late as well, and he saw the boy shaking a bit, tapping his hand, and was sorry for it)

_A man may drink, and not be drunk,_  
 _A man may fight, and not be slain,_

**_(There was a SMILE in his voice, he was happy, like you NEVER heard him, even when he was a kid he was always discontent...but NOT then, not with Stacker, don't you ever FORGET that--)_ **

_A man may court a pretty lass,_  
 _And perhaps be welcome back again!_

He couldn't help but look **at** them then, those two beautiful children who didn't know **_where_** to look--

_But since it falls unto my lot_  
 _That I should rise, and you should not,_

**(No regrets, never a one -- except I should've been the one makin' the last Drop with you, and we both knew it--)**

_I'll gently rise, and I'll softly call,_  
 _Good night, an' joy be with you all!_

_Oh, I'll gently rise, and I'll softly call_  
 _Good night, an' joy be with you all..._

In a breaking voice, he finished the last repeat, leaving desolate silence.

And Raleigh, being the only one the least bit capable of it just then, stepped into it and up, asking, "Sir? I didn't understand, when you said **before**? What -- what's **wrong** with the Pogues? Why would his dad **get mad** about that?"

Tendo Choi's eyebrows went up at that again, but he didn't say anything unkind, and Herc only explained, simply, **"Belfast.** The Troubles, y'know? He was **_stationed_** there, back when the bombs were goin' off, lost one of his **best mates** then. Sergeant George Stacker, named his son for him. **Never forget** what they done, an' all that."

The youngest man's lips parted in a silent **_oh_** of aghast comprehension, and Mako's own eyebrows showed that this was news to her, too, as it was to Tendo.

"Damn," he said, shaking his head. "I knew his father was British army, but that's -- **wow**. **Yikes,"** as the full impact of that youthful defiance sunk in. **_"Whew!"_**

"Yeah, fought his way up to Major in spite of everything, decorated for valour, all that. And angry **all the time** , at **everything**. Nobody could match up to his standards, **nobody**. Their family was such a bleedin' mess, I swear." **_Just like mine,_** he didn't say.

"Is -- he's not still **alive** , is he?" Mako was shaking her head, but it was Herc who answered.

"Oh, no. DUI into a bridge abutment -- **accidental** , probably."

**_"Whoah."_ **

"Quicker than liver poisonin'," Herc said, bitterly, **_and so much easier for everyone else -- gawd, all those angry old military men, playing dice with death because they'd cheated the odds and couldn't get OVER it--_** "Not sure about his mum, he kinda **stopped talkin'** to them after they threw his sister out, cards at Christmas and all -- bein' stationed abroad was **always** a good excuse, sauce for the gander -- but I think he called home **once** after she died and was told **never** to call again. You boys never **saw** him lose his temper, really -- you ** _didn't."_**

"Were -- were you **there** for that phone call?" Mako asked, clearly as stunned by some or all of these revelations as Raleigh himself was.

"Nah. **Tamsin** was -- heard about it from **_her._** Aside from his granddad, their whole **family** had no **_time_** for anyone who who stepped out of line, so...I **think** there's some cousins in Bristol, some of them may have tried to contact him once he was made Marshal, but -- **his** feeling was, **they'd** made their choices, he'd made **his** , and that was that."

He frowned, fiddling with his sling, and then with his water glass.

"I dunno if it made things **easier** or **harder** for him, but he never let it **get** to him, that **I** saw. I **do** know that when Eiji-sama tapped him for Marshal, that was part **of** it -- just one factor, there was **way** more politics in all that than you can **guess** \-- well, maybe you **can** imagine, you've all been around a bit -- but the way he had no **personal ties** outside our group, made things a **lot** easier..."

Raleigh Becket sat in mute dismay listening to things he couldn't have **ever** guessed at, the unofficial history of the PPDC from someone who'd **been there** from the start of it all, before there even were any Mark I's to pilot, and who'd been in Pentecost's confidence since **he'd** been in grade school!

And mixed up in it all, snippets and hints of his old commander's personal life, that he'd never, ever **thought about** before a week ago -- two weeks ago, he'd have been mortified, and **angry** at himself, in his present enlightenment -- but two weeks ago he was a different person, and now he just felt **strange** , and better about things, even, gaining a sense of what exactly the Marshal had meant, when he told him point blank that his past was **none** of Raleigh's damn business--

 ** _He could've dumped all that on us, all those years, like THEIR dads did --_** because he was getting better at listening to the silences, to the space between the things said, and recognizing that they **were** gaps, now, and some of the things Herc **wasn't** saying were coming through pretty clear regardless.

So there was **even** a bit of warmth at the thought that Pentecost had been having a laugh at **them** \-- quietly, without ever humiliating them in public -- all the while they'd been chuckling at him, for being overcautious and lacking in a sense of humor...and so glad that he'd had at least one friend he could **talk** to, the way he'd had Yancy, who understood **everything**.

It hadn't been **open** to them, when they were in a work relationship like they'd had -- the last five years, he'd seen way too much of supervisors who tried to be buddy-buddy and then turned around and reamed you out when you screwed up **OR** they did, and that was just **_poison_**. Maybe if things had gone differently--but he refused to go down **that** road, again.

He was beginning to get a sense of how much the Marshal had **used** them, too, playing them off against America's expectations and assumptions -- and prejudices, how he'd wielded them as a dual-edged weapon against both the Kaiju **and** the world powers with their hands on the budget strings, the ones at home and the fools who followed them -- and how **_devastating_** their loss was, politically speaking, for the Corps -- but instead of **resenting** it, he found himself admiring the strategy!

**_And besides, he was always honest with us, he TOLD us cadets it went with the job, we KNEW the media shows were part of that bargain, too. We just didn't think hard enough about WHY._ **

**_And dammit, we SHOULD have! We READ the books--_ **

"...and then he said to me, 'Do you have **any idea** what it's like, being a Slytherin trying to control a **herd** of **Griffindors**?' "

After clearing the beer out of his nostrils, Raleigh objected, "You mean **_Ravenclaw_** , **right?"**

"Oh gawd, no -- Stacker was **always** about winning, he never made **any** bones about that. Nah, Ravenclaw's for science types, not so much for us **_practical_** sorts."

"But..." Raleigh wrestled with concepts that tangled and fought like boa constrictors in his head. "But he was **Good!"** he finally burst out, though Mako seemed to find this much less disruptive an idea, while Tendo, who'd never gotten **into** that series, quietly opened a fresh round of beer and refilled Herc's glass, trying not too look too confused.

"Well, **_yeah_**. But with him, **everything** was about the endgame, the **goal**. It's just... for a long time he didn't **have** any purpose, nothing was **worthwhile** , y'know? Like, is it worth **givin' yourself up** to play the career games? So far as they'd **let** him, of course. They liked puttin' him on the diplomatic circuit, aide to the air attachés, that sort of thing -- look, **we** c'n do diversity too, **_go us!"_**

The younger man cringed inside, having heard enough tonight to begin to understand **exactly** how he'd misstepped after the test failure and the fight -- why even the fight itself had been a **failure** , why Pentecost expected more restraint from him than that, and how he'd deserved that disappointment.

But it never in a million years would have crossed his mind, that anyone would **ever** grab the Marshal and slam him against a car or a wall just because he happened to be in the area when the cops were called -- even before he **was** the Marshal, it had never occurred to him that anyone would **dare** treat him with such disrespect, even if he wasn't in uniform (and he understood now why always the suits, why Pentecost **couldn't afford** the casual attire that Hansen -- or he himself -- could get away with, in public, without loss of face.)

**_No, I DIDN'T have any idea, Sir. But I should have..._ **

"Which, **that** backfired on them 'cos, you can make a **lot** of connections in unlikely places, that way, if you're careful. He'd **flanked** them before ever the Breach opened! But he **_could've_** worked that angle for steady promotions, if he'd **chosen** to -- but he was too **proud** for that. "

 ** _If I'm gonna die, I wanna still be ME_** \-- Raleigh nodded.

"I can see that," and he even understood now **why** Pentecost had seemed so much more cheerful and at ease, when they met again, despite the direness of their circumstances -- it was the sense of freedom, of being one's own man at long last, no longer subordinate in **any way** to the sort of people who thought that building Walls was a good idea. **_Not an army any more..._** it all made **sense** , now. At least, **that** part of it did--

"But -- I -- he always came across as so -- **straightforward** , everything he **did** was aboveboard--"

"Aboveboard? **Straightforward?** **_Stacker?"_** Hansen looked at him incredulously, while Tendo choked, whooped and pounded the table. "You didn't **see** him playin' those suits all these years, Raleigh, lettin' them think **_whatever he needed them to think,_** and **then** doin' whatever **he** needed to get his way. You never **met** anyone as connivin' as him -- you think it was **_EASY_** , trickin' everyone to the point where they were **ready** to put aside their differences an' start buildin' Jaegers? **Hah!"**

Raleigh looked from one to the other of them, and how proud they **all** were -- Mako included! but then, **she** must have been neck-deep in all the trickery, at least the last couple of years, too!

"Well, he was always honest with us **Cadets** ," he said, finally, obstinately.

**_More than I ever knew -- when he asked me that question at Sitka, he'd already ANSWERED it for himself!_**

It still hurt, remembering how much at ease, how even **relieved** Pentecost had been, like a man shrugging off a burden weightier than any welder's kit, when he strode off to Striker Eureka and certain death, it had felt like abandonment all over again -- but knowing what he did, now, what his Marshal had struggled with all those oblivious years, he **couldn't** begrudge him the same choice he himself had taken when offered, either.

" ** _In a Jaeger" -- that was ALWAYS the only choice, for any of us..._**

"Yeah, he **never** stopped worryin' about turnin' into **_Dumbledore_** ," the older pilot nodded, looking sad again. "He didn't **dare** let you kids get too close to him, or think that he **wouldn't** risk you in battle, he swore to me over and over that he'd be **damned** before he made those same **mistakes** \--"

He closed his eyes, drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.

"And now it's **my** job, and who's gonna remind **_me_** now?"

Torn between his innate respect for his elders, and his instinct to reach out in sympathy, Raleigh didn't take long to decide and -- careful as always -- hugged the other man around the shoulders. That got him, not rebuff but some confusion, as Tendo had done the same thing from the **other** side, and Mako had reached over from **across** , so things got a bit tangled up and there were some near moments with their glasses.

"I'm okay, I'm alright, " Hansen declared, in clear contradiction of the evidence, and then, " ** _Thanks_**...we Hufflepuffs got to stick together, right," patting their hands in return.

"Don't you mean Griffindors?"

"Nah, you're too **steady** for that," said their eldest, with a smile that had more pride than sadness in it just then. "All you kids are, you figure out what needs to be done and do it an' don't budge," and Raleigh could see that, maybe, maybe he'd grown out of being a Griffindor some point along the Wall (or maybe in Medical, after Knifehead) because that old glee at rushing into battle was gone (forgetting how they'd whooped and laughed in the heat of victory, in the Conn-Pod, despite the ruins all around them!) but surely Tendo and Mako were Ravenclaws, using technology to outsmart the Kaiju with observation and weaponry?

But then he thought of Mako in the Drift, and before, snorting like a wild boar at him just before she flipped him the first time (and the Marshal had called on her to dial it down then, he'd been worried she was going to deal out real damage!) and thought, ** _At LEAST as much Griffindor as Ravenclaw!_**

And Tendo, who'd responsibly evacuated everyone out of LOCCENT during their test fiasco -- and then **stayed back** himself together with the Hansens, yards from their charging plasma cannon, to try to stop that looming disaster, something he'd overheard **so** much of from everyone present in mixed admiration and frustration at their Chief's sense of duty that if he'd **needed** anything to make him feel more horrible during those shame-filled hours he couldn't think what it **could** be -- how was **THAT** not just as much Griffindor?

Even now he **still** felt the compulsion to apologize to his old friend about that, and every time Tendo assured him that it **wasn't** his fault, or **her** fault, it was just the RABIT and not to worry about it, he felt **_worse_**.

And coming up to see the Hansens standing there firing off their flares into the monster's face, making it **absolutely personal** between humans and Kaijus in a way that nobody had ever done (or at least, done and lived to report back)? -- Griffindors, the **both** of them!

But maybe the point was, nobody **really could be** sorted neatly, because **everybody** was all partly **everything** \--

"He was so proud of you kids -- so proud of **all** of you," and the Marshal looked out, and around, at the empty Shatterdome, and its bays of ghosts -- "So proud of what you did, and **how** you did it, that -- that we'd **done** it, we'd made an army that stood **only** to defend, never to attack each other, that you kids were **never** going to bear that guilt of killing other humans to solve our problems, not on purpose--"

Whatever inner demons rode him in that regard, he did not choose to share them, wanting to talk about the Corps, and the friend who had been its heart and the fire behind its wings.

"So, so proud -- when we started losin' you right an' left, and you were the first team in a good long run there, Raleigh -- he'd, he'd just **call** me and . . .not say **anythin'** for an hour or so. 'N there was nothing I could say, either. --But we **knew** the odds weren't good, they were against us from the start, we should never have got as far as we **_did."_**

And he told them of the others who'd **been there** , from the start of it, working behind the scenes to convince their military and political leaders that bigger bombs weren't the answer, that mechas **were** , and to do so by convincing every nation that every OTHER superpower was doing it, already!

The most complicated sleight-of-hand trick ever done, diplomatically, and they made it all retroactively true, Pentecost, and his people in London, and Washington (and even more in Georgetown), and Berlin, and Brussels, and Petersburg as much as Moscow, like Captain-Lieutenant Mikhail Vishnev -- who knew exactly why submarines were no use against sea monsters **and** could explain it clearly, Annemarie Vermuelen of the European Space Agency, Edward Huntingdon-Forsmythe ("You pronounce it Chumley!" he'd loved to say, proving it possible to look the upper-class twit and have a sense of **humour** about it) of the MOD, Illari Tecona of the Organization of American States, whose bureaucratic background had been indispensable in setting up their political councils, General Sanada of the JDF, without whose seniority so many doors would have been barred them, so many who'd been crucial to the cause, in Navy Intelligence and DARPA and embassy and consulate all up and down the Pacific and around the entire world -- and first of all of them, the redoubtable PLAAF Captain Jiachen Lei, who'd wanted to be a taikonaut but hadn't made the cut, who'd been assigned to shadow a British military envoy in Hong Kong one day, and ended up playing a game of espionage so complicated that there wasn't a single word for it, except **_loyalty --_**

All of them now fallen, none of the Mark I generation left, except for he himself...

And Raleigh, as he **wouldn't** have if he'd known any of this when he dropped out of school to enlist, did find it a bit strange and surreal to learn that it had been a small tight-knit core of friends, whose friendships crossed "enemy lines" on maps and ideologies, which bonds were formed initially in a shared love of popular children's books, first and foremost, and an overlapping love of many different tales of the fantastic and of wonder, in every different media, that had come up with the plans to save the world -- and bulled through to make them a reality, too.

But where **else** were you going to find a bunch of people from all different countries and political groups, who all had spent a lot of time talking and thinking and theorizing about end-of-the-world scenarios, and alien invasions -- both the ravening bug-eyed monster kind and the ancient cruel beings from beyond the borders of time and space sort -- who already had **thought** about what to do in the event of some global disaster and it **wasn't** every man for himself, it wasn't let's us elite few flee to some refuge, be it here on Earth or to another planet, like in the movies and TV shows and even songs -- it was to stand and fight, and not **just** fight, but **_fight smart_** , with **every** tool at humanity's disposal--?

This wasn't stuff they taught in high school, after all -- at least, not most schools. "Resistance" was something they tried to iron out of you, and replace it with unquestioning conformity...the unquestioning conformity that led to going along with plans like the Wall, because the people in charge **MUST** know what they're doing, right? And anyway it's time to vote someone else off the island, so quick, change the channel...

He found he was turning the Marshal's wings over and over in his fingers, not even noticing when he'd put his hand in his pocket, like a talisman against the anger that was starting to burn through the numbness, all those years when he'd gone through the motions at the Wall because what else could he do? What other duty was left to him?

Mako was giving him a strange look, looking from him to Marshal Hansen and back again -- something he was supposed to interpret and he couldn't figure out what it was, until she grabbed his other hand and slapped it onto her wrist, and the cold metal thrill in his fingertips shocked him into comprehension.

 ** _We need to make HIM his own set now, with his new rank_** , he realized suddenly, **_he won't do it himself but he NEEDS them, and I've got to get Mako HER own Ranger pin, and I can't keep hiding and letting THEM deal with the other crews, and I need to address the cadets tomorrow, we can't just keep running on auto even if it is a state of emergency, I need to step up--_**

And then he realized in shock, **_I'm thinking like an OFFICER, not a pilot_** \-- and there was a horrible moment of dismay and denial that he could possibly be able to do this, that he had **no** idea how to do **anything** but punch monsters and blow things up, that that was all he'd ever been good **for** , and **at** \--

**_I'm NOT you, Sir -- I'm not even my BROTHER!_ **

And then the wave of his panic broke around the memory of how they'd played their own sophisticated games of strategy and intrigue together, at the Academy, and against the world before that.

 ** _But this is the biggest of big leagues, now. How do we DO this? HOW do we play the game?_** He hadn't truly understood, when he'd been half-player, half-pawn in the old days, but he had an idea, at least, and he could figure it out, he **knew** who here to ask for advice, he could **learn** to work the crowds, the cameras, the controllers of the media.

**_We'll get it right, Sir. We HAVE to._ **

And then another one of the silences fell, as the other three ran out of stories and questions, and this time he couldn't think of any way to fill it. (But he didn't have to, because it wasn't **all** on him, either.)

Tendo Choi had brought his guitar to the makeshift table, but hadn't taken it out of the case yet, hadn't decided if he could **do** it -- let alone what would be appropriate. And then it came to him between one breath and the next.

**_Yes. This one -- it HAS to be this one._ **

He only fiddled around a little bit, he'd already tuned before they rendezvoused here, and there was no point in hanging back now. The others looked at him with the hungry, hopeful look that the best audiences **always** had -- but this was more terrifying than any crowd at any gig, no matter how tough.

At the first four harsh chords, a sharpness came back into Herc Hansen's eyes that had been lost ever since the Wall fell, the overwhelmed look vanishing as his shoulders straightened in a way that wasn't seeking relief from one sort of pain or another.

_**London calling** to the faraway towns,_  
 _Now **war** is declared, and **battle** come down!_

_**London calling** to the underworld,_  
 _Come **out** of the cupboard, you boys **and** girls **!**_

He didn't bother trying to sing it like the original singers, because it wasn't 1979 any more, and this wasn't England or even America, this was a new world, a new era -- but the words still **fit** , the song still spoke its terrible truths, so he sang it in his own voice, his own style, for his fallen leader -- and for the cause they **weren't** going to let fall, either.

_**London calling,** now **don't** look to **us** ,_  
 _Phony Beatlemania has **bitten the dust!**_

_**London calling** \-- see, we aint got no **swing**_  
 _Except for the **ring** of the truncheon-thing!_

The raw, angry couplets with their cryptic mockery seemed to mean just as much to the younger PPDC officers as it did to the older ones, and his fingers got a little steadier, so that he wasn't covering for his nerves with sheer **attack**.

_The **ice age** is coming, the **sun's** zoomin' in,_  
 _**Meltdown** expected, the **wheatfields** grow thin,_  
 _Engines **stop running** \-- but **I** have no fear,_  
 _'Cause London is **drowning** and I --_  
 _I **live** by the **river!**_

Other people were listening, even if they **were** giving them all space for their private wake here, because there wasn't any real privacy anywhere in the 'Domes, outside your own cabin -- but that was all right, he was singing for **all** of them, in every way that mattered.

_**London calling** to the **imitation zone,**_  
 _Forget it, brother, you can **go it alone!**_

_London calling to the **zombies of** **death** ,_  
 _**Quit** holdin' out, and **draw another breath!**_

He really **ought** to be back in the fishbowl helping coordinate it all, still -- but Jamie Tan had finally told him he was **either** going go to spend time with Mako and Marshal Hansen and his old friend Becket, and **then** take the next shift to **SLEEP** , dammit, because she'd run this center for **years** before the Marshal had had to move his HQ here -- **_or_** she was going to dope his coffee **before** he collapsed at his station and had to be dragged away at an inconvenient moment, and he'd surrendered.

_**London calling** \-- I **don't** wanna shout,_  
 _but while we were talkin', I **saw you** noddin' out!_

_**London calling --** see, we **aint got** no high_  
 _Except for the one with the yellowing eye!_

No Jaegers, no UN warrant, no official funding, and their one allied nation hardest-hit today -- could there possibly be a less hopeful hour? But at least there were no Kaiju today, either!

_The ice age is **coming** , the sun's **zoomin' in,** _  
_**Engines** stop running, the wheatfields **grow thin!**_  
 _A nuclear error -- **but I have no fear,**_  
 _'Cause London is drowning and **I --**_  
 _I live by the river!_

_Now **GET THIS** \--_

He'd never sung **any** lines with so much force, **or** honesty--

_**London calling --** Yes, **I WAS THERE TOO**_  
 _And you **know what they said?**_  
 _Well, some of it WAS TRUE--_

_London calling at the top of the dial!_  
 _And **after** all this,_  
 _Won't you give me **a smile?**_

_London calling--_

Silence, and then Mako grabbed his right hand and pulled it across to Raleigh, who gripped Herc's left and joined them all together. None of them said anything, then, because they didn't **need** to -- this moment of calm in the eye of the hurricane would pass by too soon, and they would be ready to fight again, when it did.

**_We WILL rise up from the ashes -- and we WON'T let them starve, Sir! We're gonna fix this, I swear--_ **

He smiled at her, that loopy Becket smile they'd all seen so many times before he fell, either in person or in picture, and she did smile back then, they all did, that

**_A lot of hope is dangerous..._ **

The smile became more fierce, more wickedly-humored, more **_familiar_** \-- Ranger Becket, back from the dead, back from the Wall with the truth of **that** lie and the names of its fallen, back from the grave of discarded heroes who hadn't been good enough, hadn't been perfect enough for the fantasy -- back, and ready to face another sort of hurricane this time.

 ** _Oh, it WILL be._** And this time the odds were in **his** favor, for **this** fight --

 ** _Because she CAME here with me,_** he thought, tearing up and grinning at Mako the same time.

He has no idea, how it will strike chills into the people he'll have to deal with in the weeks and months and years to come -- or who will have to deal with **him,** to witness him half-consciously channeling Stacker Pentecost in his manner and bearing, at such public battles.

They will think they're dealing with Ranger Becket, the feckless kid, the loser who lost his brother and his way, and talk down to him accordingly, and then he will give them a disappointed frown, a lifted brow and a certain **downward** look and they will realize just how goddamn **tall** he is (but still **not** as tall as Marshal Pentecost was) and they have to **work** to patronize him, like walking into a stiff wind -- and **then** he will shrug, and step aside, and yield place to Mori-san, and they never will **_know_** what whirlwind has swept them over until it's too late, and well, **he** could have told them that, **if** they'd been willing to listen!

But then, he'd been doing it a lot longer than anyone had realized, because for him there had been one Pole Star, one true abiding north in his life, just as in Mako's -- and without ever having to choose it, they'd **both** aligned themselves to that fixed point.

And from that vantage, they would turn the world, or die trying -- and **one** world already had found **that** easier said than done!

 

**Author's Note:**

> the poetry book is the 1963 Penguin Poets edition of e. e. cummings' selected poems 1925-1958 & may be seen here  
> http://roberthanks.typepad.com/zoo_in_the_head/penguins/
> 
> Tee Emm & the P/O Prune collections from prior chapters -- & yes, there are reportedly "un-pc" minstrel themed cartoons in the oldest editions, for which I'm sorry
> 
> the bunny song lyrics & music:  
> http://www3.u-toyama.ac.jp/niho/song/usagi/usagi_e.html
> 
> Japanese versions of the moon-rabbit myth:  
> http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/indepth/cultural/kie/moon/kie_moon_06.html  
> http://www.sakura-hostel.co.jp/blog/2011/11/a_japanese_fairytale_the_rabbit_in_the_moon.html
> 
> The Clash's "Spanish Bombs" covered by Ceci Bastida of Tijuana, talking about what punk and this song in particular mean to her  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H81alHWi0H4
> 
> Cara Dillon sings "The Parting Glass" in Glasgow -- a version of the third verse was cited as an old traditional song by Sir Walter Scott in 1814  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FQz2lep_WA
> 
> The Clash London Calling official video  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfK-WX2pa8c


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